Editorials

Colorado must rethink death penalty

Since 1973, 142 people have been released from death row in the United States because of evidence suggesting they were not guilty.

That alone should stand as an argument against the death penalty. It is without question that Americans have been executed for crimes of which they were not guilty.

If that is not enough, then consider that execution is not applied uniformly. Yet it is the punishment that leaves no room for appeal or pardon, should evidence surface that the defendant was not guilty. Poorer defendants, and minorities, are most likely to face execution.

The disparity of its application is one reason Colorado legislators could bring repeal of the state's death penalty to this year's session, as is the fact that it is rarely applied.

Even the timing of a bill -- should there be one -- might serve as an argument against the death penalty as a deterrent. If any crimes are worth the death penalty, they are the mass slaying at an Aurora movie theater and the gruesome killing of Jessica Ridgeway. Yet Colorado's death penalty did not dissuade either killer from acting.

Should none of these reasons compel the state Legislature from repealing the death penalty, then perhaps practical reasons will. As noted by Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett, prosecuting a death penalty case through a verdict can cost the prosecution more than $1 million. That's more than 21 percent of the annual budget of the district attorney's office, which prosecutes 1,900 felonies a year.

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Sending away a convicted murderer for life and avoiding the years of appeals that come with a death sentence more quickly makes him dead to society and allows victims to get on with their lives.

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